AT day 114 – The day before the big one
August 30th 2018
Stealth site – Abol Pines (mile 2175.9)
18 miles
Total Miles: 2202
It rained lightly for a lot of the night. Well I think it did. I went to sleep pretty quickly. My whole body hurt and I thought it was going to be a rough night. As it was I think I barely moved.
It was another early wake up call and when I woke up everything still hurt. In fact it hurt more than it did last night. My back. My butt. My feet. My legs. My shoulders. Everything hurt. My armpit chafe was the worst it’s been so far and there was a mixture of stinging and itching and the last thing I wanted to do was put on my hiking top. Everything was a bit damp, but I was lucky compared to the others who all had soaking wet clothes to put on.
Professor and Jukebox had really bad chafing so they opted to hike in their underwear today. The two people with the longest legs looking even longer. To my surprise and extreme satisfaction they wanted to listen to the rest of Hamilton as soon as we started hiking today so we set off listening to that. That passed an hour and soon we got to a shelter where we took a quick privy break. We were doing 3 miles an hour and on track.
I felt good this morning. The others were struggling a bit which was really unusual. There were some sore feet issues and chafe and rubbing issues and just general being uncomfortable issues. The umbrella definitely helps. My clothes were no more wet than a normal sweaty day this morning.
We carried on and discussed Hamilton for a while which is one of the great benefits of communal listening. And then we had a bit of a Les Mis sing along. The show tunes really do it for me and really get me moving quickly, although not in the Wildcats in New Hampshire, nothing was getting me moving fast there. By 10:30am we had covered 10 miles.
The trail was mostly flat with a few little ups and downs but it was very rooty and rocky today which slowed progress down a little. We stopped by a lake to have a quick snack break and a breather. All of my remaining food was in my fanny pack so I had nothing in my backpack which was great. I ate a Twix and a slim Jim and we carried on. We listened to a podcast which passed the time some more and before we knew it we were at the last shelter before our destination just 3.5 miles away. We stopped to get water and spoke to a couple of guys there who told us that climbing Katahdin was no harder than anything else we had already done. Nice to know.
We checked the thermometer in the shelter and it read 17°c which is so much cooler than it has been and so much nicer to hike in. I finished up the last of my snack so I was totally out of food, exactly how it should be getting into ‘town’. We filtered some water and then we were good to carry on. I don’t know where my energy was coming from, it must have been the thought of real food. I carried just enough food with me. I certainly couldn’t have got away with any less. There were a couple of times I was really really hungry but I got through it.
We got to the northern end of the 100 mile wilderness where there is a sign (like the one we missed at the southern end) saying that hikers should be prepared with 10 days of supplies before entering the area. I took 3.5 days of supplies with me.
Professor and Jukebox put on their sleep clothes before crossing Abol bridge where there is a camp ground and a camp store and restaurant. We crossed the bridge and got a view of Katahdin whose top is always in the clouds. It looks so big. We headed straight to the restaurant where there were two of the best signs outside. Open and ice cream.
I got a pulled pork burger and fries and ate as quick as I could. And I got a soda of course which was limited to one refill. Boo. I still felt hungry so I got some mozzarella sticks and ate all of them too and after that I felt thoroughly sick. The others all ate similar quantities. I spent the next hour feeling like I was going to have the shits severely only to go to the bathroom and nothing happened at all.
We decided to do laundry because all our clothes were giving us chafe so we chucked it all in together and dried out our tents and stuff in the sun. We had to buy some resupply for the climb up Katahdin and as we would be doing 20 miles tomorrow it’s basically a full days stuff we would need. The supplies are very limited and I ended up getting 3 Twix, 3 packets of Oreos, 2 packs of fruit snacks and a honey bun for breakfast. I also needed new batteries for my head torch. I noticed last night that the light really wasn’t very bright. They don’t let you go up there without one and I didn’t want it to fail on me. Professor had a spare battery that he gave to me and when I got one from the store there were 2 bits of good information. They sold batteries singly and they only had one AAA left, which was exactly what I needed.
We decided to get ice cream. Peaches got 3 scoops for $5.50 and when Professor ordered 4 scoops it was $5.53. She said that the highest they are able to charge or something but they don’t reduce the amount of ice cream they give you which is really weird. I didn’t want 4 scoops. I didn’t need 4 scoops. But I got carried away and copied what the others were doing! We sat on a picnic table and we had to eat it as fast as we could to stop it melting and dribbling everywhere. After 15 minutes I was so cold I was shaking and my tongue hurt and I had barely reached the rim of the cup. I put on my puffy to try and warm up. My belly hurt so much and in the end I couldn’t finish it. I probably only ate two third of what she gave me but I figure that one of the scoops was basically free so. It of course didn’t go to waste and Professor and Jukebox finished it up, the monsters.
Jukebox paid $5 for a shower and there was no time limit on it so we could potentially have all showered, Peaches got one in but Professor and I decided not to. For one I don’t have a towel, and We didn’t want to be caught and ruin it for everyone else, not that I think they would have been that bothered, and also I didn’t want to take my clothes off because I was cold from the ice cream. Of course a shower would have likely warmed me up but I was all about being warm right now.
Once our laundry was done we packed up our stuff. I went to use the bathroom one more time and I gave my armpits a little rinse in the sink. It’s such a glamorous life I lead. We walked down to the campground. It was $13 per person. Not keen on paying for camping and there was an option to stealth under the power lines, but this way we have a privy and it’s a nice campsite by the river. Plus this way we are contributing to the use of the area for future generations. In this huge campsite we set up our tents right next to each other in a line.
We had all bought dinner from the camp store. I got two, why two I don’t know, packets of ramen. They were a dollar each which is crazy as they are 25 cents in a supermarket. I made one packet. Ate about 3 spoonfuls and gave the rest to Professor. I was so full it hurt.
We didn’t stay up long because we were getting bitten all around the ankles and we have to get up super early tomorrow. We have 10 miles of flat hiking to do before we start the climb and we want to get that done early. So the alarm is set for 4:15am!!